3 Dharmaraja Students, Bharatha Rankothge (DAANA Scholar in 2011,2012 and 2013), Rahal Medawatte, and Janith Weerakkody participated at the Dubai Regional round of World Scholars Cup from 31st May to 1st June and were able to bring glory to school and motherland by winning the Third place at the overall completion after competing with 200 other teams from 12 different nationalities. Furthermore, Bharatha Rankothge was awarded the Best Scholar award from among 600 students. Altogether, they won 14 medals and 4 trophies, astounding the audience and the organizing committee and gaining special recognition as the best performance in the Scholar’s Cup history from a rookie team.

As an appreciation to this great achievement and to support global round participation, DAANA provided LKR 50,000/= as travel assistance to the winning team.

RISGO will be held from 18th to 22nd February 2013, at the DRCK Lake View Park International Scout Center. Over 3500 scouts from across the island and international scouts from more than 50 countries will be participating in the event

Join us for a night full of fun, music, and dance. DAANA, with the help of DC area Rajans, is organizing it's first ever get-together on August 13th, 2011 in Maryland, DC area. Venue is yet to be decided but can assure you that it will be lot of fun. Bring your family and friends. Mark the date and make your travel plans. Call as many Rajan friends in North America as possible and convince them to come. It's a long time coming and time to meet and rekindle our relationships, share the memories of LakeView, sing our favorite songs including "Rajans Kollo, Maya Kello...".

We have tentatively decided that the ticket for the event to cover the cost of the venue, food, music and drinks will be about $50. Kids under 10 years are admitted free.

Please RSVP asap so that we can make a head count, reserve discount hotel rooms, and make other plans:

DC Chapter Rajans are gearing up for another Rugby 7's tournament this year. You may remember that last year few Rajans flew from all over the north America to participate in this event. To continue this tradition, DC Rajans are trying their best to field a team this year. The tournament will be on the memorial Day weekend (May 29th, 2011) in DC. This will be a great occasion to get-together with other Rajans for a fun filled event. There will be party until the wee hours!
It will be great if you can participate in the tournament.

Dharmaraja hosted an event on April 4th 2011, to award the scholarships to this year recipients with Chapa Weearathna as the guest of honor along with Dr. Jatyantha Pethiyagoda and Yasas Chandrasekera. We will update you with more details of this event soon.

We thank all the donors who made this project a success with their generosity and look forward to continuing this tradition to the next year.

We launched the DAANA scholarship program in 2009 to help bright but needy students of Dharmaraja College, Kandy and were able to award 27 scholarships thanks to the generosity of many Sri Lankans in North America. You can find a brief account of the 2010 program here.

Due to the overwhelming response and support we received from you during the inaugural round concluded in 2010, we are looking forward to continuing this program in 2011 with a great confidence. We are in the process of screening more than 80 applications we received this year.

We thought it would be worthwhile to invite you to continue to contribute for this worthy cause. If you are interested, you can sponsor a student by your own or few of you can join to offer a scholarship.
Each scholarship based on academic merit is $100 for the whole year (Rs. 1000 per month). Also we will be awarding 5 scholarships worth of $50 each (Rs. 5000 per year) based on extra-curricular activities.

Please take advantage of this request if you are seeking an opportunity to help a needy Sri Lankan student. Visit our website for more details http://www.dharmaraja-na.org and if you are interested, please contact DAANA Board of Directors, a DAANA member, or reply to oldrajans.na_at_gmail.com

CONGRATULATIONS Chinthaka ! We are proud of you, you lived up to your parents expectations and teachers high billing, Well Done ! Keep up good work, enjoy Pera Efac life, and lets hope our paths will cross soon here in North America.

The Board of Directors for DAANA for 2011 had their first BOD meeting on 16th January 2011 and unanimously selected the following officers:

President: Ashoka Polpitiya

Vice President 1: Sheranga Jayasinghe

Vice President 2: Sanka Tennakoon

Secretery 1: Madhura Rajapakshe

Secretery 2: Udayana Ranatunga

Tresurer: Kaushalya Siriwardena

Activities Directors: Indrajith Rajapaksa, Asanka Samaraweera

As the new BOD, we are committed to making DAANA stronger than ever and help Dharmaraja grow. We are thankful to all DAANA members for entrusting us for this task and look forward for their help and wisdom during 2011. We are specially grateful to previous BODs for their relentless efforts that brought us this far. We will continue the great programs they put forward such as the scholarships for deserving young Rajans, educational outreach activities like the Webinars, workshops and Walllpaper, the book drive, and other fund raising efforts.

We are eager to get your ideas and suggestions. Please send them to oldrajans.na_at_gmail.com.